Chuck Benedict
How many of the world's great violinists own famed Stradivarius
instruments?
"None," says Glendale Symphony conductor Sidney Weiss. "They're all
owned by collectors who can afford them. Some are worth several million
dollars."
How many of today's top-level violinists have performed with
instruments made entirely by their own hands?
Just one. Weiss owns and plays only violins he makes, unaided, in his
own workshop.
He has a worldwide reputation as a soloist (he played -- and conducted
-- a Mozart violin concerto at a Glendale Symphony concert in February)
but few know of the rare talent he has for creating violins of
world-class quality.
We visited Sidney Weiss in his workshop in Los Angeles.
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Benedict: When did you first become a conductor?
Weiss: In the Air Force, several of us who were musicians wanted to
stay away from menial tasks, so we formed a small orchestra. We needed a
conductor and I "volunteered."
Later, I played in the Cleveland Symphony with conductor George Szell
and was the concertmaster in the Chicago Symphony with George Solti.
After my wife, Jeanne, and I spent eight years in Europe, giving recitals
together and separately (she is a wonderful concert pianist), I came to
Los Angeles, at the invitation of conductor Carlo Maria Giulini.
Soon I was concertmaster of both the Los Angeles and Glendale
symphonies and now I am in my third year as the Glendale Symphony
conductor. It is a joy to conduct players with such a high level of
talent.
CB: Your programs seem to stay with the old classics.
SW: We play the great music -- music that touches the soul. The
orchestra and I delight in this, and we want to share it with people
whose hearts feel a love for these classical works.
CB: You are unique -- a concertmaster and soloist who makes his own
violins.
SW: I love to work with wood and I love the violin. Combining both
loves was inevitable.
CB: Creating a violin must be a very delicate challenge.
SW: It is. I have to make sure the spruce wood, which must be attached
above the maple, is as precisely cut as the maple. I keep tapping the
instrument as I proceed to make sure I'm getting the right sound. The
keys to the permanent sound are the quality of the maple and spruce and
the precision in joining them.
There are many nuances in this work that must be seen in the process
to be understood.
CB: What happens to the violins you make?
SW: I have made about 15 of them, but only four are my "professional"
